This piece of news might upset some social media managers. According to reports, Facebook is testing a new image size in link-previews.
As if Facebook hasn’t caused enough pain to publishers; many will now have to re-think those carefully-chosen images for their Facebook link-previews. The reason? Facebook is testing 1:1 aspect ratio link-preview images.
Examples of the test were first shared by Alex Hudson in the UK and Filip Struharik in Slovakia, with both examples demonstrating how much of an issue this new aspect ratio could cause.
In Alex Hudson’s example, the publisher – The Irish Times – had added its name to the link-preview image, and the new aspect ratio cuts it off.
In Filip Struharik’s example, a problem isn’t really evident, yet the image is not what the news site was going for.
In any case, Facebook has confirmed that it is running this test with a “small percentage of users” but doesn’t have immediate plans to roll it out more broadly. If the test is successful and Facebook does actually roll it out, this could cause issues.
First and foremost is the issue of a post taking up more space on the feed. Not necessarily bad if it leads to better traffic for websites, but it would definitely need a re-evaluation, as the image used will not be landscape anymore – instead it will be square.
The reason behind this? Is Facebook trying to align with Instagram? Are Facebook and Instagram starting to meld in one somehow? What do you think?
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